


No Choice to Make

by supercanaries



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Internal Conflict, Spoilers, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-01
Updated: 2016-02-01
Packaged: 2018-05-17 15:57:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5876848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supercanaries/pseuds/supercanaries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is only so many preparatory breaths you can take before you ought to admit to yourself that breathing is barely the mask for procrastinating. Lexa knows she is dwelling over nothing. It wouldn’t be this challenging to walk in, hadn’t it been for the hurt she’s had to conceal only yesterday. One night is not nearly enough to soothe the kind of pain that comes out of … love. Three months didn’t do, less than twenty-four hours won’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Choice to Make

**Author's Note:**

> Based on prompt Clexa + “Come over here and make me.” This drabble contains spoilers / rumored lines from upcoming episodes. Obviously, the setting and the scenarios are most likely to be different in the episodes, but in case you didn’t read spoilers and you didn’t want any now, please don’t read. Also it’s my first Clexa fic (I’m super anxious right now).

There is only so many preparatory breaths you can take before you ought to admit to yourself that breathing is barely the mask for procrastinating. Lexa knows she is dwelling over nothing. It wouldn’t be this challenging to walk in, hadn’t it been for the hurt she’s had to conceal only yesterday. One night is not nearly enough to soothe the kind of pain that comes out of … love.

Three months didn’t do, less than twenty-four hours won’t. Not after what she has witnessed.

Being in her position has never been as hard as when she’s had to stand unaffected by Clarke screaming and kicking to break free with the intention of harming her. Part of her expected their reunion to be a complicated wave of emotions and actions and glares, but the part that hurt the most was not Clarke despising her, no; the worst part was to see what Clarke had become.

There hasn’t been a moment since then where Lexa didn’t need to hide the discomfort that it caused, knowing that what Clarke is now, is what Lexa made of her. Not deliberately, but what good are intentions when she has turned the woman she has fallen for into the Commander Death? Lexa didn’t mean to turn her into this, and even less she meant for Clarke to become the target of the Ice Queen. After all that has been, what makes it hard to breathe is that she accidentally destroyed all that she loved Clarke for.

She can only hope that underneath the surface, beyond the scars of Wanheda, there is some phantom of what Clarke of the Sky People used to be.

Hope, though, is a too slippery edge for minds not to fall.

The silence that welcomes her wraps around the whole war room. The command center is quiet and so is Lexa on the outside.

When she sees Clarke though, she knows the screams thronging her inside are not the sole sound between them. Sitting still, with her jaw tight and her eyes hard is the woman Lexa loves despite her best intentions; she is not any less angered than she had been yesterday and when she senses her presence, blue eyes cold as ice turn to hers. If Lexa hadn’t abandoned the custom of shivering when she had to become the strong figure she is, she would shudder. 

“You have not eaten since your arrival.” It’s not a question, Lexa knows because she has been informed. “You have been a fugitive for long. I imagine you must be famished.”

Clarke’s eyes somehow manage to become sharper. Her glare might as well be a blade. Lexa walks to her slowly, not because she is afraid, but because she worries the hurt could grow as the distance reduces.

“There are signs of hunger on the body, Clarke,” she says tenderly rather than knowingly, “you have no reason to deny yourself something you are in need of.”

“Do you care?” Clarke finally speaks and even though she is not screaming, there is something in her voice that resembles the tone she used when she screamed that she was going to kill Lexa.

“You are my guest.” It’s not an answer, not a direct one.

Lexa wishes that Clarke would read through the layers and hopes she can’t at the same time. Why is it, Lexa thinks, that she has to be split between being herself and the Commander of the Twelve Clans around Clarke, who has already blurred those lines before?

“I am not _your guest_.” Clarke’s mouth is a thin line between words. “I am your prisoner. Don’t call it something other than what it is, Lexa.”

“Prisoners do not sit at the war table.” Lexa’s steps are measured; she is close to Clarke and yet a galaxy away still.

“Guests are allowed to leave then.” Clarke says bossily with a hint of challenge.

They both already know that is not a possibility.

“They are.” Lexa’s voice is quiet and firm. “You are not.”

“That is unexpected.” Clarke says with such sarcasm and anger that if it were anyone else in the world, _anyone_ who wasn’t Clarke, Lexa would unleash hell on them.

But this is Clarke.

_I need you_ Clarke.

_Don’t we deserve better than that_ Clarke.

_Not yet_ Clarke.

It is Clarke, whose lips had been the most powerful jolt of joy Lexa had felt in a long time; it is Clarke, whose eyes are always so sincere and unconditioned, faithful only to Lexa the woman rather than the commander; Clarke who didn’t leave Lexa to die and embraced her people and fought by her side.

Because _it is_ Clarke, Lexa cannot be who she is with others. That is not a possibility for them.

“I need you, Clarke.” She tells her once more, with some twisted desperate hope that this time it will have a better result. “I cannot let you go now. I need you more than ever.”

This time, as she is standing and Clarke is sitting with a face that tells she has given up on violence for the moment, Lexa can drink in her features with no outburst. There is a mixture of anger, hurt and sadness all over Clarke’s lines. She is furious but aches, Lexa can tell the bruises she has caused. Guilt settles in her stomach, despite reason and the awareness that she did not do what she did out of evitable preference; she did what she had to do to save her people. Clarke herself told her to do so, to worry about her people.

“I don’t care what you need.” Clarke’s voice is venomous and intentionally hurtful, but Lexa can see she doesn’t think it will actually hurt. It does, but Clarke does not need to know. “I don’t care.” She repeats, softer, her eyes look moist. “Just like you didn’t care.”

Lexa keeps her own body still as much as she can. There is a storm inside but she cannot let it out of the cage.

“I did care, Clarke.” Her voice is harder than she feels it inside. She feels tiny and not as strong as she wants to. “I care still, which is why I want your people to become my people.”

_I don’t want to ever be put in a position where I have to choose between my people and you_ , is what she means, but she does not tell. She _can’t_ tell Clarke, she can’t have her know that she is such a big part of her that Lexa would shamefully want that more than she wants peace. Peace _with Clarke_ is so beyond her reach and yet she secretly craves it with such intensity that it’s breaking all the certainties she ever had.

Clarke gives her an incredulous look, as if what Lexa is saying was completely insane. She does not speak, so Lexa allows herself to fill the void.

“The Ice Queen believes that taking your life will reward her with your power. You are the Commander of Death, come your end, your spirit shall choose her.” Clarke frowns, looks lost for a moment. “You can see how that is not only endangering your life, but also threatening my position.”

When Clarke’s face shifts from doubt to hardness again, Lexa starts considering that she might not have figured a proper way to talk to her without enraging her yet. Clarke is still partly a mystery to her ways.

“Is that what this is all about?” She asks angrily, with such determination, it sets a fire alight in Lexa’s soul. “Your position? Why would I want to do anything for you when you betrayed me? You left me and my people to die!”

Lexa stands tall, pushes her shoulders back and sets her head high. Her knees barely tremble but she does a good job at hiding it.

“You must if you wish for your people to survive.” There is a promise behind her words, but she is not confident Clarke will see through. “We’re at war already, Clarke. Bow to me and your people will be safe.”

Clarke looks as if Lexa had slapped her in the face.

“I will _never_ bow to you.” She hisses between tight teeth and then she stands up. Lexa doesn’t move back or quiver. “You want me to bow? Come over here and make me. That is the only way you can ever get me to bend the knee.”

Lexa is not intimidated by the aggressive attitude, because she is a warrior and knows how to protect herself, but even if that wasn’t the case, there are two Royal Guards outside, who will walk in on her command. What she truly fears is the way her head spins with proximity, just like it had when Prince Roan first brought Clarke to Polis. Her heart is suddenly pacing to a new tempo, beating rhythmically, almost at a sotto voce that reaches her ears and pumps in her head.

“I wish you could see, Clarke,” she says quietly, almost can’t hear her own words underneath the internal hammering, “sometimes we must make choices that we hate in order to preserve our people.”

“Is that what happened?” Clarke walks closer, they are almost face to face and undeniably too intimate for Lexa’s body not to betray her. “When you left me and my people to die … was it a choice that you hated?” Her voice is quieter, almost as quiet as Lexa is used to hearing it. “Or was it a choice you made light-heartedly?”

Lexa wants to tell her that it was the hardest choice she had ever made, that even when she resolutely walked away from Clarke, she was hurting as much. She wants to confess all of the thoughts she has developed during these months, how many times she has imagined things differently, how many times she told herself she had done the right thing but then wondered about why it felt like she should be looking for Clarke.

Of all the things she wants to tell, what she whispers softly is:

“Have you ever made a choice, one that you hate with all your heart, one that would hurt someone – _as much as it hurts you_ , she thinks but does not say – only so that you could save your people?”

The shift on Clarke’s face is immediate and then Lexa sees it: the girl she knows, the girl she fell for. Hesitation, fear, remorse … _humanity_. She is a beautiful puzzle of hurtfully broken pieces, and Lexa despises herself for loving every piece of it. Her stomach feels heavy again, _I caused this_ , she thinks but not says, _I turned beautiful fierce Clarke into Wanheda and now how I get to watch as I’m incapable of picking up the pieces._

“We are the same.” Lexa says, feels her throat burn with the effort of keeping her voice steady. Her fingers itch with the need of reaching out for Clarke and comfort her. Instead, she gets to stay still and watch her drown, no longer trustworthy of being Clarke’s wall.

“We are nothing alike.” Clarke spits, but when they make eye-contact Lexa can see her insecurity. “You have no honor and I have no choice to make.”

Lexa doesn’t even try to say anything as Clarke is already walking by and leave her behind. Her hand almost reaches for her, there’s the hint of a movement to follow, but it is all that is.

An _almost_ , just as they are.


End file.
